CHAPTER XVI.
[ROBBED].
It was an uncomfortable, wearisome evening. A conversation like that of the morning between Herr von Osternau and the tutor always leaves traces, even although it has ended satisfactorily for both parties; for some short time at least it leaves behind it an uncomfortable sense of restraint, and this was evident now. Herr von Osternau could not recover from the effect upon his mood of the interviews with the Lieutenant and the tutor. He tried to be as cordial and kindly as usual, but he did not succeed very well, and his efforts were by no means seconded either by Albrecht or by Pigglewitch.
The Lieutenant was so absent-minded and self-occupied that he took no part whatever in the conversation, and the Candidate was noticeably taciturn. He did not add to the evening's entertainment either by playing or by singing; he declined, indeed, to sing when asked, pleading fatigue, even when Lieschen added her voice to the general petition for a song.
"He is jealous," Frau von Osternau whispered to her husband, and it really seemed as if she might be right. Herr von Osternau noticed that the Candidate was watching Bertha narrowly, and if he really were in love with her she certainly gave him abundant cause for jealousy.
Bertha alone of the little assemblage was in the rosiest mood, she was so gay, so absolutely charming, that Herr von Wangen was to be pardoned for having eyes and ears for nothing save her radiant self. The young fellow, who was wont to be so shy, now conversed with readiness and ease, nay, he and Bertha monopolized the talk. He did not find the evening wearisome, he could have wished that it might last much longer when Herr von Osternau declared that it was time to separate for the night, since Herr Pigglewitch would be obliged to rise early for his journey the next morning.
"You are leaving us?" the Lieutenant asked, suddenly becoming interested. "Where are you going, and for how long?"
Lieschen looked at Egon in surprise, awaiting his reply.
"I do not yet know how long I shall be gone," Egon replied. "My leave of absence is for three or four days."
"Oh, no, Herr Pigglewitch," Herr von Osternau interposed, "I leave that entirely to you; if you wish to remain longer with your uncle you need not return for a couple of weeks. Herr Pigglewitch, Emma, is going to visit a relative of his, Pastor Widman, in Wennersdorf," he added, in reply to his wife's look of surprised inquiry.
An odd smile hovered about the Lieutenant's features for an instant. His sullen mood was suddenly dissipated, and with a good grace he wished the tutor a successful journey and a speedy return. In this he was joined by Bertha and Herr von Wangen, but Lieschen said not a word; there was only a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes as she bade him good-night, and her hand rested in his a moment longer than was usual.
Herr von Osternau had another interview on his hands this evening. He had his confession to make to his wife. She had a right to know the meaning of this sudden visit of the Candidate to his uncle. Her husband could not but acquaint her with Herr Pastor Widman's letter, and with his conversation of the morning with Herr Pigglewitch. As he did so he expressed his conviction that Pigglewitch was a thoroughly honest man, and he added an account of the commission with which he had intrusted him.
Frau von Osternau did not share her husband's faith. "I am afraid, Fritz," she said, shaking her head, "that you have allowed yourself to be carried away again by your kind, unsuspicious nature. Had you not better recall the commission? Ten thousand marks is a large sum, quite sufficient to tempt a poor Candidate who, as we now learn, has a passion for play. Let Albrecht go to Breslau to-morrow, or Herr Storting, or Herr von Wangon."
"To change my messenger now would be a positive insult to Herr Pigglewitch. I was perhaps imprudent, but it is done now and cannot be altered."
The old Herr, however, was not quite easy in his mind. He slept but poorly, and awoke the next morning so weary that in spite of the glorious weather he did not go out, but sat at his favourite window in his arm-chair. Lieschen and her mother kept him company, but they could not enliven his gloomy mood, which was partly caused by his confinement to the house and partly by a vague feeling of anxiety. His thoughts dwelt upon the Candidate. Would the money arrive punctually from Breslau?
Towards eleven o'clock the Lieutenant entered the room, and seemed confused and not quite agreeably surprised to find Lieschen and Frau von Osternau with his cousin, but quickly collecting himself he said, "I come to you at a rather unusual time, Cousin Fritz, to ask you for leave of absence for a few days. I must attend to that money matter of which I told you. I must spend a short time in Berlin."
"You know I never wish to put any restraint upon you," his cousin said, kindly; "still less would I do so in this matter, in which I wish you all success. When would you like to go?"
"With your permission, immediately after dinner. I wish to leave Breslau by the night-train, and so have the entire day in Berlin to-morrow."
"I am quite willing. I beg you, however, to go to see Sastrow to-morrow as early as possible. I know that you are not on very good terms with him. I ask you as a favour to me to see him yourself, and learn from him about Bertha's affairs: whether anything has been heard of young Herr von Ernau, and whether there is any abatement of the disagreeable gossip of society. Write me to-morrow what you hear."
"It will hardly be necessary. I can tell you the latest news of the affair without having seen Sastrow. You must pardon me for not letting you know before what I heard from a friend in Berlin, who accompanied me to the railway-station when I was last there. I was so preoccupied with my own affairs that I quite forgot Fräulein von Massenburg's. However, I told Fräulein Bertha herself soon after my arrival that there was no longer any doubt of the death of Herr von Ernau, his body has been recovered from the Spree."
Herr and Frau von Osternau uttered an exclamation of surprised dismay. Lieschen was not at all surprised. "Now I understand," she said, "Bertha's excited manner on the evening of her conversation with Cousin Albrecht in the window-recess, and her great amiability towards Herr von Wangen after it. As Herr von Ernau is certainly dead, Herr von Wangen is to take his place."
"How can you speak so unkindly, child?" said her father.
"I only speak the truth. I know that she would have preferred the millionaire, but since she must give up all hopes of him, Herr von Wangen will do."
"Not another word, Lieschen!" Herr von Osternau exclaimed. "Hush! If you cannot conquer your childish, unfounded dislike for Bertha, at least do not give it utterance. Go on, Albrecht, tell me what else you heard."
"Nothing else, except that the body of the unfortunate man had been found in the Spree. Whether Herr von Ernau was murdered or had drowned himself my friend did not know. The chief of police, from whom he had his information, did not know either, but suspected he had been murdered, since none of the money which he had drawn from his father's bank on the morning of his disappearance was found upon the body. Doubtless all this has tended to increase the talk about Fräulein von Massenburg, so it is scarcely necessary for me to go to inquire of Herr von Sastrow."
"You will, however, oblige me greatly by doing so, and by letting me know what he says."
"Your wish shall be my law, Cousin Fritz. My first visit to-morrow morning shall be to Herr von Sastrow. I shall leave, then, immediately after dinner, and I must ask you to advance me five hundred or a thousand marks. I dislike to ask this favour, but if I am to make any settlement of the matter I spoke of to you I must have some cash in hand."
Herr von Osternau frowned. He would fain have refused the young man's request. He suspected that the money would be used to attempt to recover his losses at play, but he did not wish to expose the Lieutenant before Lieschen and her mother, and he could not explain to them his reason for wishing to refuse a demand apparently so reasonable.
He rose slowly and went to his secretary. It was usually opened with great ease, but now something seemed the matter with the lock, he was several moments in unlocking it, and he had the same difficulty with the money-box. "Strange!" he said, trying to turn the key in the last; "either I am very awkward today or these keys are growing rusty." As he spoke the lock yielded and the lid of the box opened. One glance showed him to his dismay the reason why he had found so much difficulty in turning his keys. His secretary had been forced in the night by means of false keys, and the money had been stolen from the iron-bound box. The bundle of bank-notes which Herr von Osternau had returned to it on the previous day, after giving the note of hand to the Candidate, was gone.
One look sufficed to tell Herr von Osternau that he had been robbed, and by some inmate of the castle; no one else could have known of the considerable sum in the money-box, no one else could have used false keys in the night without a forcible entrance into the castle, of which there were no traces.
It was not the loss of his money, but the thought that there was a thief beneath his roof which so disturbed Herr von Osternau that he tottered, and might have fallen had not his wife and the Lieutenant hastened to his assistance and helped him to his arm-chair.
It was but a momentary weakness, however, to which the old Herr succumbed; in an instant he was on his feet again, examining the secretary and the papers left in his box. They were all there, even a package of certificates of stock in a sugar-refinery, worth some ten thousand thalers; everything was there save the bundle of bank-notes. The thief had been too cunning to take anything which might lead to his detection.
But who was the thief?
This question Herr von Osternau put to himself and to his wife, after informing her of his loss, and of his belief that he must have been robbed by some one of his household.
Frau von Osternau was no less shocked than her husband, she did not reply. The Lieutenant made answer in her stead. "It can be no other than that fellow, the Candidate, who left the castle this morning with the booty obtained thus in the night."
He had scarcely finished speaking when Lieschen, flushed with indignation, confronted him. Her little hand was clinched and her eyes flashed as she said, in a voice which she vainly tried to steady, "It is a vile, cowardly calumny! You would not dare to say it to his face if he were here! I should sooner believe that you were the thief than that he could be guilty of a dishonourable act!"
The Lieutenant started and turned pale at this sudden denunciation; unable to meet Lieschen's indignant eyes, he cast down his own and answered not a word.
"My child, my child, of what are you thinking?" Frau von Osternau exclaimed.
But Lieschen was not to be stopped. With flashing eyes still riveted upon the Lieutenant, she went on, "I will not have an innocent man slandered when he is not here to defend himself, and by one, too, who has always shown himself his enemy, and who may have his own ends to serve by this accusation."
"Cousin Fritz, can you allow your cousin to be thus treated by your daughter?"
Herr von Osternau had entirely recovered from the shock of his discovery, and he replied calmly and gravely to the Lieutenant's complaint: "No, neither can I allow an unfounded charge to be brought against one who, as Lieschen says, is not here to defend himself. My child is right in espousing the Candidate's cause, but her manner of doing so I cannot approve. Go to your room, Lieschen, and stay there until Cousin Albrecht consents to pardon you."
Lieschen silently obeyed the father whom she loved, but her glance at Albrecht, as she left the room, spoke of anything save a desire for pardon at his hands.
"It is infamous!" the Lieutenant exclaimed, when Lieschen had left the room; "just to whitewash a vagabond, an adventurer, dropped down among us from nobody knows where, I am exposed to such vile insinuations! This Pigglewitch----"
"Has done nothing to lay himself open to the charge of a midnight robbery," Herr von Osternau interposed.
"But, cousin, you yourself said that the thief must have been one of the household. Whom else can you suspect save this fellow? The servants are honest and tried, and have been here for years, while the tutor has been here but for a short time. We know nothing of his past, he never mentions it. Such reserve betokens an evil conscience. I never trusted him. I will not repeat my suspicions, but surely they are justified by his absent-minded manner yesterday, his strange behaviour, and the fact that the robbery occurred the very night before his departure. I shall avail myself of my short time in Breslau to-day to notify the police of what has happened, and beg them to try to arrest the thief. He probably has the money still in his possession; to-morrow he will have hidden it in some safe place or will run off the day after from Hamburg or Bremen for America. Whatever is done must be done quickly."
"I strictly forbid all notice to the police. I will not have an innocent man insulted by their interference in his affairs."
"But, Fritz, will you let the thief escape with his booty? How are you to discover him if you do not call in the police, whose business it is to catch thieves?"
"I do not wish to discover him," Herr von Osternau quietly replied to his wife. "You will let the money go?"
"That is the least of my loss, although the sum was a considerable one. What I find hardest to bear is that among those whom I have trusted there is a scoundrel, a thief. I do not wish to know him, to bring him to punishment. I can do without the money. I would rather lose it than have Castle Osternau made the subject all over the country of the talk which I hate. Therefore, I beg you to say not one word to any one about the robbery. You hear, Albrecht? You understand?"
"As you really desire it, I will promise to be silent."
"Enough. Now I will detain you no longer. Before you start I will find means to give you the advance you have asked for, and to do this I must drive to Mirbach myself. Pray have the horses put to the light, open wagon, and brought round to the door as soon as possible."
"Do you mean to drive yourself, cousin? No, you must not; you look pale and ill. The discovery has agitated you, the drive might do you harm. Permit me----"
"You have preparations for your journey to make."
"But, Fritz, I pray you let Albrecht go with you," Frau von Osternau said, anxiously, but her husband shook his head impatiently. "Do not oppose me," he said. "I have reasons for wishing to go alone. The wagon must be at the door in five minutes; pray see to it, Albrecht."
There was no gainsaying the old Herr when he was thus decided, and the Lieutenant left the room to do as he was requested. No sooner had the door closed behind him than Herr von Osternau said to his wife, "I must go to Mirbach myself. If Pigglewitch has received the money on the note and sends it immediately by post, it will arrive with the mid-day train. I must see for myself whether he has sent it."
"I am afraid you will have your drive in vain. All excitement is, as you know, injurious to you; why will you not let Albrecht go?"
"Let him go? Do you forget what Lieschen said, Emma?"
"For heaven's sake do not tell me that you share the suspicion at which Lieschen's words pointed so unjustifiably?"
"Lieschen's look probed her cousin's soul, he could not endure it, an evil conscience spoke in his eyes. Do you guess now why I would rather lose the money than ask the police to interfere? Their investigation might result in what the Lieutenant would hardly like. I have made many a sacrifice to preserve the name of Osternau from dishonour, I shall make this one also. There must be no whisper of even a suspicion that an Osternau could be guilty of theft."
"But you cherish such a suspicion, while your confidence in Pigglewitch, whom there are quite as many reasons for suspecting, is unshaken."
"I hope in a short time to bring you proof that the Candidate deserves my confidence; this is why I am going to Mirbach."
Frau von Osternau said no more, but accompanied her husband to the hall door, before which the light wagon was waiting.
As he drove off she followed him with anxious eyes, and then applied herself to waiting patiently for his return. Fortunately, she had not long to do so; hardly three-quarters of an hour had passed when the vehicle again drove up to the hall door, and her husband sprang from it with an elasticity and vigour which showed that he felt stronger than before his drive.
"I was not deceived," he whispered to his wife, who had come from the sitting-room to receive him. "I do not deny, Emma," he went on, when they were alone together, "that I could not help being somewhat doubtful as I drove to Mirbach. I thought of Lieschen, of her implicit trust in Pigglewitch, of her fearful disappointment if he should be discovered to be a scoundrel who might well be suspected of theft. My heart beat faster when I asked for my letters at the post-office, and when they handed me the envelope with five seals, I was delighted. Here it is. Pigglewitch is all right, he has executed his commission promptly and well. If he had committed the robbery, he would surely have added to his gains the ten thousand marks which he sends me here, that he might carry away in his flight everything he could get. This letter is the best proof of his innocence. Do you suspect him how?"
"No; but I cannot tell whether to rejoice that I do not, and I cannot see how you can be so glad. How can you look so happy when, as you cease to suspect a stranger, your next of kin takes his place in your suspicions?"
"I gave him up long ago," Heir von Osternau replied. "I keep him beneath my roof because my duty and the honour of our name link me to him, and because I owe him some indemnification for the annihilation of his hopes. The unhappy event which has just occurred does not relieve me of this duty, it must remain a secret between us two."